HOUSE OF THE COMMONERS OF THE ISLES LIVERPOOL

Chris Patten The BBC Trust London cc Enda Kenny TD David Cameron MP Louise Ellman MP Alex Salmond MSP Carwyn Jones MWA Peter Robinson MLA Chris Burns, BBC Radio Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian Peter Oborne, The Daily Telegraph Stuart Prebble, Storyvault Films Andrew Kidd, The Aitken Alexander Literary Agency Deborah Rogers, The Rogers Coleridge White Literary Agency 31st August 2013

Dear Lord Patten I write further to my letters of 10th November 2012 to you and of 6th July 2013 to Helen Boaden to inform you that it seems that the proposal for the establishment throughout the British Isles as a whole of a Federal Republic of the British Isles may now have the support of Governments of all persuasions throughout the islands. They are simply having difficulty saying so. Happily, however, they also have no difficulty with my saying so on their behalf, and I write now therefore to ask if the BBC will accord me the opportunity of doing so. The continuing failure of the present Parliament for the British to consider and give its judgement on the proposal confirms both the present Parliament and present Government for the British not as institutions of British device but of English device and as Stuart Prebble observed in his report the orthodoxy presently diminishing and enfeebling the political discourse of the British is something that needs to be addressed. Moreover, as the present Parliament for the British indicated in its judgement on the response to the situation in Syria in the democratic world the effective initiatives are the ones that require no force. Yours sincerely

Richard Ede

HOUSE OF THE COMMONERS OF THE ISLES LIVERPOOL

Chris Patten The BBC Trust London cc Enda Kenny TD David Cameron MP Alex Salmond MSP Carwyn Jones MWA Peter Robinson MLA Louise Ellman MP John Whittingdale MP Chris Burns, BBC Radio Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian Peter Oborne, The Daily Telegraph Stuart Prebble, Storyvault Films Andrew Kidd, The Aitken Alexander Literary Agency Deborah Rogers, The Rogers Coleridge White Literary Agency 21st September 2013

Dear Lord Patten I write in response to Kate Whannels of 3rd September to ask if you would have the courtesy to reply to the question I put to you in my letter of 31st August. I continue neither to receive personally nor to detect in the public statements of any of those concerned anything to contradict my interpretation of the position and if you or anybody else at the BBC has I trust you will let me know what it is. As I feel sure you will appreciate a misunderstanding is no basis for any democracy to proceed on, and especially a democracy seeking to navigate its way out of the situation created in Ireland by the failure in the country of English attitudes and English policy. Yours sincerely

Richard Ede

HOUSE OF THE COMMONERS OF THE ISLES LIVERPOOL

Chris Patten The BBC Trust London cc Enda Kenny TD David Cameron MP Alex Salmond MSP Carwyn Jones MWA Peter Robinson MLA Louise Ellman MP John Whittingdale MP Chris Burns, BBC Radio Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian Peter Oborne, The Daily Telegraph Stuart Prebble, Storyvault Films Andrew Kidd, The Aitken Alexander Literary Agency Deborah Rogers, The Rogers Coleridge White Literary Agency 12th October 2013 Dear Lord Patten I write further to my letter of 21st September to inform you that still nothing has happened to change my understanding of the position and if my understanding differs from yours I ask again therefore if you would let me know in what way it does. Are there interests other than the public interest that the BBC is also under an obligation to serve? If there are, I would further inform you that with the exception of George Entwistle and Tony Hall, neither of whom I have asked, I am given to understand by the inability to deny it of all DirectorsGeneral since 1993 that it is an understanding with a government that is preventing the BBC from informing the public of the position. With the exception of yourself who I also have not asked I am also given to understand by the inability to deny it of all Chairs of the Governors or Trust since 1993 that it is such an understanding that is preventing the BBC from serving what I feel sure all would agree is the Corporations principle interest. So I ask you now, and I look forward to receiving your earliest denial. If no denial is forthcoming I shall take it that it is an understanding with a government that is preventing the BBC from meeting its statutory obligations in this matter and proceed accordingly. Yours sincerely

Richard Ede